Grammar in the Classroom, by Mark Lester, c.1990.
 
<page 100> Compare the following two sentences.
 
Past: We went to the movies. right
 
Past perfect: We had gone to the movies when you called. right
 
<page 102> Consider the following sentences.
 
John has brushed his teeth. right
 
Phil had ordered breakfast. wrong*
 
<page 103> Verb Phrase: had been working = past perfect progressive right (no capital letter, no period)
 
<page 104> 9. He had nearly wrecked the turntable. wrong* 
 
Exercise 3.4, #4: The company had invented a new mousetrap. wrong*
 
<page 236> Exercise 6.4
 
#2: John had brushed his teeth. wrong*
 
#4: A student had reported the accident. wrong*
 
<page 238> Exercise 6.5
 
#9. It had touched a nerve. wrong*
 
I have read that this is the most widely-used grammar textbook in the land. What I've shown above is a mere sampling but it's enough to know that the author either doesn't understand the past perfect or .. or what? Could there be any other explanation?
 
This is Exhibit #102 to my assertion that there is at least one past perfect error on any grammar website or in any grammar textbook you can name. Challenges are welcome, encouraged, and appreciated.
 
.brad.08apr09.
 
* The example sentences marked wrong* are incorrect because they stand alone, without context. The past perfect is used to denote that an earlier past event was completed before a later past event. None of the sentences so marked have the necessary two timing elements. The correct sentence above, We had gone to the movies when you called, has two elements of timing: (1) when we went to the movies and (2) when you called, both completed in the past, one before the other.
 
"By the time something happened, something else had already happened."

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